Sean Malone

Life is nuanced. Unfortunately, 140 char limit encourages shallow black/white thinking. 😕Think deeply and precisely, even if it doesn't fit!

@sweatystartup Work in progress. 🫡

Buy a little bit of land outside of town and plant a garden.

Good question. Three things: 1) Confirming alignment on the big things (money, family, kids, faith, etc) before getting married. 2) Learning early on how to argue well. That is, to authentically share what one believes is best and work toward that outcome, while trying to avoid causing unnecessary pain to the other even when you disagree. This also requires being able recognize when yourself or your spouse has failed in this area, and help each other recover gracefully and apologize rather than spiraling. 3) Communicating openly and confiding in each other. If your fiancé isn’t your confidante, something’s wrong.

@SeanTMalone @AdamLaneSmith In a nutshell, what has made your marriage successful?

Is 20 too young to get married?

@grayzoneintel @ScottPresler @grayzoneintel and @ScottPresler would be an amazingly effective combo. You guys should absolutely work together.

I'm in Austin, @ScottPresler. Please set aside 45 minutes to discuss counter-organization with me. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Put differently, Jesus was and is the victor in all things. He won at everything he intended to do, in exactly the way he intended to — comes with being omnipotent. There’s a world of difference between a mindset of “Jesus did not win with the polis (people, i.e., ‘political victory’) so we shouldn’t expect to either” and “we should ensure that all our political battles are fought to bring about the kingdom of God, not for personal victory and glory, and accept that victory may not always look like we expect or be on the timeline we want.”

@fathermaurer It is. “Winning … is exactly the opposite of what Jesus modeled.” We should of course seek to emulate what our Lord modeled. Saying that winning is the opposite of what he modeled is to say that we should not seek it. If we are not seeking to win, then we are planning to fail.

Reflecting lately on how being the victor and winning - especially in politics civil & ecclesial - is exactly the opposite of what Jesus modeled in His life, passion, death, and resurrection. It is the long defeat, marked with sacrifice & suffering, that leads to His victory.

@SteveSkojec @Pontifex This is you at your best. Well said.

A priest friend is annoyed with certain Catholic criticisms of @Pontifex on his anti-war bluster. Among other things, my friend specifically targets the left/right political delineation when it comes to popes, makes the case that we don't want a pope who advocates for war, decries the failures of Iraq/Afghanistan, and of course points out the tragedy of the casualties (and I know this priest in particular has worked with vets who have PTSD). I tried to frame a respectful response, and when I was done, it seemed worth posting on main here, as a reference point for my own position on the Iran conflict: With respect, because you're my brother and I love you, here's how I see it (sorry, it's long): 1) The Iranian regime is a metastatic version of the already non-benign "Twelver" branch of Shia Islam, which holds as part of its fundamental eschatology that both the "Great Satan" (America) and the "Little Satan" (Israel) must be annihilated to bring about the return of the Mahdi, the Twelfth Imam. We're talking messianic apocalyptic death cult here. 2) They have proven that they will launch missiles at the civilian infrastructure even of friends, which is a) why the Gulf states are so hellishly mad right now and b) why they CAN NOT be allowed to finish developing a nuclear weapon. And they WILL NOT give up their pursuit of nuclear weapons. The negotiations keep failing on this point. Mutually-Assured Destruction doesn't work when you're dealing with suicide bombers. 3) They massacred ~40,000 of their own people just a couple months ago. They are executing young people even now for protesting for their own freedom. When a young woman is arrested, they make sure to rape her in prison so when they execute her, she goes to hell for being "impure." Over 90% of Iranians living in country hate the regime and want it gone. I am interacting with dozens of accounts both in country and outside (with family in contact still in-country) who are BEGGING for this war to continue. Their greatest fear is that the bombing will stop and a ceasefire will happen that will keep the regime that has been terrorizing them for half a century in power. 4) Pope Leo has said NOTHING SPECIFIC about the butchery that has been going on in Iran. Nothing nearly as pointed as he has made against the countries that area a) fighting to stop the #1 world sponsor of terrorism from getting nukes/building an impenetrable missile shield and b) offering an opportunity for regime change if the Iranian people can rise up and take their government. 5) Pope Leo IS an American and he IS part of our political paradigm. I don't think the Left/Right ideological assignment as we understand it has ever applied so directly to a pope, because he's the first American to have the job. And he JUST met with David Axelrod, one of the most vicious far-left political advisors in progressive politics. That meeting went on so long that Leo was 30 minutes late to his next engagement. 6) RE: casualties -- 13 Americans have died in this conflict. Always a tragedy, but it is important to remember that the US military averages 20-25 accidental deaths per month across the entire armed forces due to mishaps/training exercises. We are operating at some of the lowest casualty rates ever seen in a military conflict. 7) Leo's visit to the Grand Mosque in Algeria during all of this, with his great demonstrated respect for a religion that is actively persecuting Christians in that nation (and across Africa), never making any attempt to confront the human rights abuses being perpetrated there, is not a reassuring look. War is never the desired outcome for mankind. But peace is not the default. But peace is not the default, as I know you know. You're a big history buff and know tons of stuff I don't. But that's why I think you'd agree with me that peace is only possible -- in human terms anyway -- through strength. And more than any other reason, I want to see the Iranian people freed of the savagery they have been forced to live under -- largely because the CIA and MI6 decided to screw around with the Iranian leadership back in the 50s, leading to this mess in the first place. I'll leave you with one of my favorite Chesterton quotes here, because I think it applies to Pope Leo rather unfortunately: “Idolatry is committed, not merely by setting up false gods, but also by setting up false devils; by making men afraid of war or alcohol, or economic law, when they should be afraid of spiritual corruption and cowardice.” ― G K Chesterton

I agree with you. At the same time, “being Catholic” also means recognizing that popes & bishops frequently contradict each other and have no special wisdom or protection from error in most cases — including the pragmatic evaluations of foreign policy, economics, criminal justice, immigration, & military matters. There’s a reason the requirements for infallibility are so narrow.

I am and will ever be a Catholic before I am an American. I hope that there are enough of us who feel the same.

@SteveSkojec @roddreher Yeah, not funny. But the fact that it’s even slightly plausible says a lot about the current state of the Church.

@roddreher I have come to believe this is a terrible, terrible April Fool's joke.

If so, this will delegitimize the canonization process. Would be a massive Vatican own goal.

That definition makes sense -- I'm somewhat puzzled by the concept of "knowing actual spells." If one were to have intention, pick random objects, and invent a ritual ... is that an actual spell? Or is there a component of arcane knowledge here, where some combinations of objects & rituals are actually more efficacious in invoking pagan/demonic spiritual entities? I'd always assumed that intention / willful cooperation with evil entities was the efficacious component, and the rest was all poppycock. But, that's not based on any research or knowledge of the area.

@SeanTMalone An actual spell is combining intention with objects and ritual to enact one's will upon the world, either through invoking your own "power" or that of some pagan/demonic spiritual entity. You spend enough time on tiktok and you pick up what the pagans say about themselves.

Friendly reminder that although most Etsy witches are grifters who know like 2 actual spells, maximum, they are in fact real witches and you absolutely cannot be messing with their shenanigans.

@Austen What have your costs been like this far?

Current status

@ddaily99 Praying for you both!

Hey everyone, I normally don’t post stuff like this but my wife Rachel is in the hospital in the ICU, I’d really appreciate it if any of my fellow believers out there would say a quick prayer for her. Thanks in advance. God bless.

I’m reacting strongly to this because I see a lot (the majority?) of Catholics in teaching roles say that it’s “complex” and leave it at that, without actually sharing the teaching of the Church. I think this is one of the reasons why the phenomenon has spread rapidly with little cultural pushback. Not in any way saying this is your intent — but highlighting the danger of treating the issue as something overly complex.

How is this complex? Don’t deny the God-given role and complementary nature of the sexes. Don’t speak falsehoods. Don’t mutilate the body. Some people have delusions (about any number of things), have a complete lack of moral formation, and should be treated with compassion. Like most teachings, there’s a lot of nuance as you go down the rabbit hole. I think it’s counterproductive to imply that it’s more complex than the average case of application of universal principles to the specific case. Every topic can be presented with more or less complexity, appropriate to the situation.

free countries are not dispensed from the law of nature.

There are certainly good pastors, too. They do the hard work of making up for decades of poor formation and poor leadership to get a parish back on track, by bringing as many people as possible to understand the WHY of what needs to happen. From my experience, they are a small minority of pastors. @fathermaurer is one such example.

Three times now I’ve had pastors who were willing to listen and privately agree with the improvements needed … but unwilling to disrupt the status quo of slow decline. The poorly-formed geriatric who’s been there 40 years and has the parish in her will. The choir director who plays guitar and hates chant & Latin, but would be hard to replace. For the vast majority of even well-meaning pastors, these types of people have more authority than the GIRM and encyclicals. Listening is not enough. Pastors must be willing to show backbone and lose parishioners in order to create an environment that fosters spiritual (and demographic!) success.

@muthaPNW Spokane. Thanks!

Good morning, Washingtonians! ☀️ A Washingtonian Discord Group. 📲 Networking Opportunity, Community Gathering We’re building a statewide network across all 39 counties to connect patriots like you who care about local politics, school boards, city councils, and the issues hitting our communities hard. Whether you’re sharing updates on crime trends, mobilizing for initiative signatures, rallying for causes we believe in, or testifying in Olympia to make our voices heard – this is your hub. Our focus is on real grassroots action: fostering teams in every county, exchanging ideas, and turning online chats into in-person connections over coffee or dinner. Prefer coffee? ☕️ We’ve got channels for that too! ‼️Post your county below, and I’ll connect with you soon in a DM. I am working in different platforms, so give me grace while I add you. 🇺🇸

@stormynormy42 @jon_stokes Protestors should not be accountable for their actions? That's an interesting take.

@SeanTMalone @jon_stokes Yes, it is highly asymmetric. Law enforcement officers are public employees who have agreed to a job where they're given a monopoly on violence and massive leeway on when to use it, and should thus be accountable to the public they serve for their actions. Protesters are not.

I would like to see both sides agree that nobody should be wearing masks in public: not protestors, and not ICE or any other LE. This masking all sides is really really bad and escalatory.